"A Girl of the Streets" by Stephen Crane.

Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane shows that the environment that a person is raised in will have an effect on that person's life in the future. The story is a tragedy of a family, the Johnson's, who are living a life of poverty and abuse in the slums of New York City in the late 19th century. The main character, Maggie Johnson, has a dream to escape her life of poverty and brutality. Maggie is described to have "blossomed in a mud puddle" (Crane 22) but she eventually begins to live the life of prostitution and she dies a tragic death. Most critics say "Crane reveals quite st…